
Glass. 



\°[\G 



Book„ 



0l)ake0peare 1 §ome; 



VISITED AND DESCRIBED BY 



WASHINGTON IRVING and F. W. FAIRHOLT 



Letter from Stratford by J. F. Sabin : 

AND THE 

©omplete ^xom 82Eorfc# of gtfjafcespeare. 




With Etchings by J. F. and W. W. Sabin. 



J. SABIN & SONS, 84 NASSAU STREET. 
.877. 



-\ 



»0\ 



INDEX OF PLATES 



Shakespeare's home 



The following etchings are not put forth with 
claims to originality farther than as to variations in 
treatment. We have noted the want of a neat 
little book on the subject, and we have endeavored 
to produce it. 



Falstaff after G. Cruikshank, ) X7 . 

7 V Vignette 

in the large paper copies only. J 


on Title. 


Illustrated Title ; Stratford Church 


PAGE 2 


House in Henley Street 


7 


Bidford Bridge . 


. 21 


Charlecote Hall .... 


• 2 5 


Warwickshire Cottage 


• 35 


Chancel Window, Trinity Church 


. 48 


Luddington Church . 


. 60 


Holy Trinity from the Avon 


. 68 


Anne Hathaway's Cottage 


• 76 


Lord Southampton .... 


• (83) 

. ^3 



To the Editor : 

Dear Sir, — You kindly inform me, that it is your 
intention to issue a small volume on the home of 
Shakespeare. As well might you undertake to print 
the works of Shakespeare on a needle's point. A small 
volume, forsooth ! on the home of Shakespeare. His 
home is in the human heart, and in the hearts of all, 
speaking the language he wrote or reading his works 
translated. Fie, for shame ! go to ! 

Shakespeare's real home, where is it not ? As far 
as human foot has trod, either in the arctic or the 
torrid zone, his voice and influence have been heard 
and felt. The tattered leaves of his much read volume 
are carefully cared for by the trapper of the West 
and the wandering emigrant of New Zealand. It 
cheers the lagging hours of the prisoner in his cell, 
and forms the text for universal conversation. The 
school-boy spouts his lines, the lover copies his 
verses, the soldier is fired by his enthusiasm, the jus- 
tice tempers his sentences by a quotation, the lean and 
slippered pantaloon pores over his tome, and the last 
stage of all finds hope and consolation in his ever- 
living lines. 

The Home of Shakespeare ! What a theme. He 
had, he has indeed a home, and to his love of home, 
perhaps, is due the strong affection which we cherish 
for him. Amid the gay attraction of the Metropolis 
of Elizabeth, and her court, he found time to think, 



2 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

and to think much, of Stratford and its surroundings. 
To this spot his journeys were frequent, and he kept 
himself well informed of the condition and prospects 
of his birthplace. Here dwelt his Anne, the jointure 
of his name and fame, the partner of his heart 
and home, and here his children were reared and 
educated, and married, aye, and married well ; and 
here clustered all those hopes and fears for the fu 
ture, all those dear remembrances of the past. To 
this spot then, on laying aside the buskin, our 
Shakespeare oft repaired, for consultation and recrea- 
tion for new brain work, and is it too much to say, 
that assistance was rendered him by his Anne Hath- 
away ? I trow not. 

It is rather remarkable, that amid the mighty in- 
tellects, which clustered around the dramatic stage of 
the period, such as Marlow, Peele, Greene and others, 
few or none had homes, had families, or left a 
name (save their writings) worthy to be compared at 
all with Shakespeare's. In what church do they lie, 
what effigies stand for them ; in what memories do 
they live, like unto our Shakespeare ? — none. They 
had no homes — for them to-day, for our Shakes- 
peare, to-morrow, — were their several ideas. Then, all 
hail ! our Shakespeare, for his love of home ; and be 
he on our hearts enthroned. 

C. W. Frederickson. 



THE 



HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 

Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream, 

The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 

For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. 

Garrick. 

All that is known with any degree of certainty con- 
cerning Shakespeare, is, that he was born at Stratford- 
upon-Avon, married and had children there, went to 
London, where he commenced actor, and wrote 
poems and plays, returned to Stratford, made his 
will, died, and was buried. Such is the concise bi- 
ography of our greatest poet, as given by Steevens ; 
and although volumes have been written, more or 
less conjectural, on his life and times, they scarcely 
add a single fact to the meagre list of ordinary 
events he has enumerated. Slight, however, as these 
notices are, they invest the humble town of Strat- 
ford-upon-Avon with an interest which it would not 
otherwise possess. It was peculiarly the " Home of 
Shakespeare ; " here he was born ; here he passed his 
early youth ; here he courted and won Ann Hath- 



4 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE 

away ; here he sought that retirement which the 
avocations of his London career would occasionally 
allow him to indulge in : and here, when in riper age 
he had won honors and fortune in the great capital, 
he chose to return, and pass the latter days of a life 
where he had first seen the light. At Stratford he 
died and was buried. All that connects itself with 
the personal history of the " world's Poet " at Stratford 
is thus almost as closely condensed as are the few 
words quoted above, which form his biography. A 
day at Stratford affords ample time to visit all these 
places ; they lie so close, that a few minutes walk 
only separates them. In these days of change, it 
must be a work of interest to record and picture 
the few relics connected with the Bard of Avon, 
more particularly as alterations are continually tak- 
ing place there, which, if they do not destroy, do at 
.least change the aspect of much that is interesting 
to all lovers of the poet, and " their name is legion." 
We will therefore conduct the reader over Stratford 
and its neighborhood, minutely describing all that 
at present exists, and enumerating what has passed 
away, commencing our journey at 

Shakespeare's birthplace. 

The house in Henley Street, as it at present exists, 
is but a fragment of the original building as pur- 
chased by John Shakespeare, the Poet's father, in 
1574, ten years exactly after the birth of his son 
William, the entry of whose baptism is dated in the 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 5 

Parish Register, April 26, 1564. John Shakespeare 
had purchased in 1555 a copyhold house in Henley 
Street, but this was not the house now shown as the 
poet's birth-place ; he had also another copyhold 
residence in Greenhill Street, and some property at 
Ingon, a mile and a quarter from Stratford, on the road 
to Warwick. From these circumstances a modern 
doubt has been cast on the truthfulness of the tradi- 
tion which assigns the house in Henley Street to be 
the poet's birth-place. Mr. Knight says: "William 
Shakespeare, then, might have been born at either of 
his father's copyhold houses in Greenhill Street 
or in Henley Street. He might have been born at 
Ingon, or his father might have occupied one of the 
the two freehold houses in Henley Street at the 
time of the birth of his eldest son. Tradition says 
that William Shakespeare was born in one of these 
houses, tradition points out the very room in which 
he was born. Let us not disturb the belief." A wise 
conclusion ! 

Antiquarian credulity has given place to an ex- 
treme degree of skepticism ; and from believing too 
much, we are now too much given to believe too 
little \ add to this the anxiety many evince to write 
about Shakespeare, although little else but conjec- 
ture in its vaguest form be the result ; and the value 
of modern conjecture as opposed to the ancient tra- 
dition may very readily be estimated. Let Stratford 
ever sacredly preserve the venerable structure with 
which she is entrusted. Pilgrims from all climes 



6 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

have felt a glow of enthusiasm beneath the humble 
roof in Henley Street. Let no rude pen destroy 
such homage, or seek to deprive us of the little we 
possess connected with our immortal bard ! 

When John Shakespeare purchased this house from 
Edmund Hall, for forty pounds, it was described in 
the legal document as two messuages, two gardens, 
and two orchards, with their appurtenances. It 
passed at his death to his son William, and from 
him to his sister, Joan Hart, who was residing there 
in 1639, and probably until her death, in 1646. 
Throughout the poet's life, the house is thus inti- 
mately connected with him. It was a large building, 
the timbers of substantial oak, the walls filled in 
with plaster. The dormer windows and gable, the 
deep porch, the projecting parlor and bay window, 
all contributed to render it exceedingly picturesque. 
The division of the house into two tenements is 
very visible. In 1792, when Ireland visited the 
house, the dormer windows and gable had been 
removed, the bay window beneath the gable had 
given place to an ordinary flat latticed window of 
four lights, the porch in front of that portion of the 
building in which Shakespeare was born was re- 
moved, and a butcher's shop-front constructed. At 
this time there lived here a descendant of Joan Hart, 
sister to the poet, who pursued the humble occupa- 
tion of a butcher. The other half of the house was 
at this time converted into an inn, and ultimately 
sunk into a low public house. It had been known 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 7 

as the Maidenhead Inn in 1642, and when, in 1806, 
the house was disposed of to Mr. Thomas Court, 
who became " mine host " thereof, he combined that 
name with the one it then held, of The Swan. 
About 1820, excited by a desire for "improvement," 
he destroyed the original appearance of this portion 
of the building by constructing a new red-brick front, 
exactly of the approved fashion in which rows of 
houses are built in small towns, and which consists 
generally of an alternate door and window, repeated 
at regular intervals, below, while a monotonous 
range of windows above, effectually repulses at- 
tention. 

This brings us to its present aspect (1847), de- 
lineated in our illustration. The house is now di- 
vided into three tenements ; the central one is the 
portion set apart for exhibition, in the back rooms 
of which live the proprietors ; the shop, the room 
above, and the kitchen, are sacred to visitors. When 
the lower part of the central tenement was made to 
serve for a butcher's shop, its window was removed, 
and has not been replaced ; and when the butcher's 
trade ceased, a few years since, no attempt at restor- 
ation was made, and the shop still retains the signs 
of its late occupation. The old window in the upper 
story, originally a lattice of three lights, had been 
altered into one of four, and modern squares of glass 
usurped the place of the old leaded diamond panes. 
A board for flower-pots was erected in front of the 
window ; but more recently a large, obtrusive, rudely 



8 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

painted sign-board projects from the front to tell us 
" The immortal Shakespeare was born in this house." 
Such is its present external aspect. " It is a small, 
mean-looking edifice," says Irving. Ascending the 
step, we pass into the shop. The door is divided 
into a hatch, and we look back into the street above 
the lower half, and through the open window of the 
shop, with its projecting stall for meat, and its wooden 
roof above. The walls of this room are of plaster, 
and the solid oak beams rest on the stone founda- 
tion. On entering, the visitor looks towards the 
kitchen, through the open door communicating with 
the shop. On the right is a roomy fire-place, the 
sides built of brick, and having the chimney-piece 
above cut with a low-pointed arch out of a massive 
beam of oak. To the left of the door is a projection 
in the wall, which forms a recess or " bacon cup- 
board," the door of which opens in the side of the 
kitchen chimney of the adjoining room. The floor 
is covered with flagstones, broken into fifty varied 
shapes ; the roof displays the bare timbers upon 
which the upper story rests. A raised step leads 
from the shop to the kitchen ; it is a small square 
room, with a stone floor and a roof of massive tim- 
bers. A door opposite the shop leads to an inner 
room, inhabited by the person who shows the house. 
The fire-place here is large and roomy, the mantle- 
tree a solid beam of oak. Within the fire-place, on 
one side, is a hatch, opening to the " bacon cup- 
board " already spoken of ; on the opposite side is a 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. g 

small arched recess for a chair ; here often sat John 
Shakespeare, and here his young son William passed 
his earliest days. Ireland compares the kitchen to 
the subjects which " so frequently employed the rare 
talents of Ostade." In the corner of the chimney 
stood an old oak chair, which had for a number of 
years received nearly as many adorers as the cele- 
brated shrine of the Lady of Loretto. This relic was 
purchased in July, 1790, by the Princess Czartoryska, 
who made a journey to this place in order to obtain 
intelligence relative, to Shakespeare ; and being told 
that he had often sat in this chair, she placed herself 
in it, and expressed an ardent wish to become a pur- 
chaser ; but being informed that it was not to be sold 
at any price, she left a handsome gratuity to old Mrs. 
Harte, and left the place with apparent regret. 
About four months after, the anxiety of the Princess 
could no longer be withheld, and her secretary was 
despatched express, as the fit agent, to purchase this 
treasure at any rate ; the sum of twenty guineas was 
the price fixed on, and the secretary and chair, with 
a proper certificate of its authenticity on stamped 
paper, set off in a chaise for London. With that 
anxiety to supply relic-hunters who visit Stratford, 
and who sometimes feel disappointed with the little 
which remains there connected with the poet, the 
absence of the genuine chair was not long felt. A 
very old chair is still in the place, and Washington 
Irving thus speaks of the chair he saw in 1820 : 
"The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is 



io THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook 
of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his 
father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat 
when a boy, watching the slowly revolving spit with 
all the longing of an urchin ; or of an evening, listen- 
ing to the crones and gossips of Stratford, dealing 
forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of 
the troublesome times of England. In this chair it 
is the custom for every one that visits the house to 
sit : whether this is done with the hope of imbibing 
any of the inspiration of the bard, I am at a loss to 
say ; I merely mention the fact ; and mine hostess 
privately assured me, that though built of solid oak, 
such was the present zeal of devotees, that the chair 
had to be new bottomed at least once in three years. 
It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this ex- 
traordinary chair, that it partakes something of the 
volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the 
flying chair of the Arabian enchanter ; for though sold 
some years since to a northern princess, yet, strange 
to tell, it has found its way back again to the old 
chimney corner." 

Of the sort of Shakespearian relics exhibited in the 
house at this time, he gives an amusing list. " There 
was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with 
which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching 
exploit ; there, too, was his tobacco box, which 
proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter 
Raleigh ; the sword also with which he played 
Hamlet : and the identical lanthorn with which Friar 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



i i 



Lawrence discovered Romeo and Juliet. There was 
an ample supply, also, of Shakespeare's mulberry 
tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers 
of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross, 
of which there is enough extant to build a ship of 
the line." 

Opposite the fire-place in the kitchen is a window, 
and beside this is the stair which leads into the 
room in which the poet was born. It is a low- 
roofed apartment, receiving its only light from the 
large window in front. The same huge beams pro- 
ject from the plastered walls, one of consider- 
able solidity, crossing the ceiling. The fireplace 
projects close to the door which leads into the 
room ; an immense beam of oak forms the mantel- 
tree ; a large piece is cut out of one corner — the work 
of an enthusiastic young lady, so said the late propri- 
etress, who declares that she was kept in conversa- 
tion below by the lady's female friend while the act 
was done. She told many similar stories of Shakspe- 
rian enthusiasm, and never left the room or lost sight 
of anyone after this daring trick. To be permitted to 
sleep a night in the room, she stated, was an ordinary 
request made to her, which she occasionally grati- 
fied ; while such fits of enthusiasm as bursting into 
tears, or falling down and kissing the floor, were 
ordinary matters scarcely worth her noticing. 

Of the old furniture in this room, and that through- 
out the house, it may be hardly necessary to remark, 
that it has no absolute connection with Shakespeare. 



12 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

A portrait of Shakespeare, on panel — a poor perform- 
ance — was brought from the White Lion Inn, a few 
doors from this house. 

In this room the visitor, if he pleases, may sign 
his name in the book kept for that purpose. About 
1815, the conductors of the Public Library of Strat- 
ford gave to Mrs. Hornby, the then proprietress of 
the house, a book for that purpose, the walls and 
windows having been covered before. Among many 
hundreds of names of persons of all grades and 
countries, occur those of Byron, Scott, and Wash, 
ington Irving, the last three times. Many are 
accompanied by expressions of feeling, others by 
stanzas and attempts at poetry, which have been 
thus commented upon by one among the number : — 

" Our Shakspere, when we read the votive scrawls 
With which well-meaning folks deface these walls ; 
And while we seek in vain some lucky hit, 
Amidst the lines whose nonsense nonsense smothers, 
We find, unlike thy Falstaff in his wit, 
Thou art not here the cause of wit in others." 

The most curious feature of the room is the 
myriad of pencilled and inked autographs, which 
cover walls, windows, and ceiling, and which cross 
and re-cross each other occasionally, so closely 
written and so continuous that it gives the walls the 
appearance of being covered with fine spider-webs. 
Irving, speaking of the house, says : " The walls of 
iits squalid chambers are covered with names and 



M* WILLIAM 

SHAKESPEARES 

COMEDIES 

HISTORTE^vSr 

TRAGEDIES,^ 

Putiifttd actoidi iw>o H< T, u eOng< flellCopjej. 




LOMPOJV 

p.-oteU,ll3)«tIa^wa4jiE<3.BWr\\ ibt'V 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 13 

inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all 
nations, ranks and conditions — from the prince to 
the peasant — and present a simple but striking 
instance of the spontaneous and universal homage 
of mankind to the great Poet of Nature." Books for 
entry of names are now kept. 

In the adjoining public-house, when Ireland visited 
it in 1792, was a square of glass, upon which was 
painted the arms of the Merchants of the Wool 
Staple, which he considered to be conclusive evi- 
dence of the trade of Shakespeare's father, who 
by some authors was said to have been a dealer in 
wool. Aubrey assures us he was a butcher. Mr. 
Knight has clearly pointed out the likely origin 
of both stories, in the custom of landed proprietors 
like John Shakespeare, selling their own cattle and 
wool. The glass was brought there from the Guild 
Chapel ; it therefore has no connection with Shake- 
speare. 

In a lower room of the public-house, Ireland also 
saw " a curious, ancient monument above the chim- 
ney, relieved in plaster ; which, from the date, 1606, 
that was originally marked on it, was probably put 
up at the time, and possibly by the poet himself. 
In 1759 it was repaired and painted in a variety of 
colors, by the old Mr. Thomas Harte, before men- 
tioned." Upon the scroll over the figures was in- 
scribed, "Samuel XVII. a.d. 1606;" and round 
the border, in a " continuous line, was this stanza, 
in black letter : — 



I4 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

" Golith comes with sword and spear, 
And David with a sling ; 
Although Golith rage and sweare, 
Down David doth him bring. " 

Ireland gives an engraving of this solitary frag- 
ment of the interior decoration of Shakespeare's 
house, although we much question the propriety of 
imagining the possibility of Shakespeare placing such 
ludicrous doggerel there. The house was at that 
time occupied by his sister, and she most probably 
resided in the other half of this then large tenement ; 
so that neither may have been guilty of it. The bas- 
relief was carried away some years ago by the pro- 
prietor of the inn. The font in which the poet was 
christened is now but a fragment, the upper portion 
only. The same style was adopted with singular 
good taste for the new font in the church, which may 
therefore be considered as a restoration of it. Mr. 
Knight has thus given its history : " The parochial 
accounts of Stratford show that about the middle of 
the seventeenth century, a new font was set up ; the 
beautiful relic of an older time, from which William 
Shakespeare had received the baptismal water, was, 
after many years, found in the old charnel house. 
When that was pulled down, it was kicked into the 
church-yard, and half a century ago was removed 
by the parish-clerk to form the trough of a pump at 
his cottage . Of the parish-clerk it was bought by the 
late Captain Saunders, and from his possession 
came into that of the present owner, Mr. Heritage, a 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



[ 5 



builder at Stratford." It is still in his possession. 
The font shown at the Shakespeare Arms, is reported 
to have been brought from the neighboring church 
of Bidford. 

From the house where Shakespeare was born to 
the place where he obtained his " small Latin and 
less Greek," is but a short distance. 

The Grammar School 

is situated in the High Street, beside the chapel of 
the Guild, or of the Holy Cross, a good specimen of 
the ecclesiastical architecture of the reign of Henry 
VII. ; and the interior of which was originally decor- 
ated with a series of remarkable paintings ; the prin- 
cipal being the legendary history of the holy cross. 
In this chapel, at one time, the school was held ; and 
an order in the corporation books, dated February, 
1594, directs " that there shall be no school kept in 
the chapel from this time following." The occupa- 
tion of the chapel as a school may have been but a 
temporary thing ; but Shakespeare may have imbibed 
some portion of his learning within its walls. The 
foundation of the grammar school took place in the 
reign of Edward IV. In 1482, Thomas Joliffe gave 
certain lands and tenements to the Guild of the 
Holy Cross, to maintain " a priest fit and able in 
knowledge to teach grammar to all scholars coming 
to the school in the said town to him, taking noth- 
ing of the scholars for their teaching." On the dis- 
solution of the Guild, Edward VI, in the seventh 



■lS THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

year of his reign, ordered that " the free grammar 
school for the instruction and education of boys and 
youth there, should be thereafter kept up and main- 
tained as heretofore it used to be." 

The Latin school-room is situated over the old 
Guildhall, and is that portion of the building near- 
est the chapel. It is a perfectly plain room, with a 
low plastered ceiling ; but from the massive beams at 
the sides of room, and those above the modern 
piaster, to which the struts from the side beams form 
the support, as well as from the external appearance of 
the deeply pitched roof, there can be little doubt that 
an open timber roof originally decorated this apart- 
ment. 

The Mathematical school-room beside it, has a 
flat roof, crossed by two beams of the Tudor era ; 
and in the centre of the roof, where they meet each 
other, is a circular ornament or boss. The school 
has been recently repaired, and it has entirely lost 
its look of antiquity. 

A few years ago there were many very old desks 
and forms there ; and one among them was termed 
Shakespeare's desk. It is now kept below. The 
tradition which assigned it to Shakespeare may be very 
questionable ; its being the oldest and in the worst 
condition may have been the reason for such an ap- 
propriation. The boys of the school very generally 
carried away some portion of it as a memento, and 
the relic-hunters frequently behaved as boyishly, so 
that a great portion of the old wood has been 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. z y 

abstracted. The court-yard of the school presented 
many features of interest; but the hand of modern 
"improvement" has swept them away. 

In 1840 the schools were approached by an antique 
external stair, roofed with tile, and up which the boys 
had ascended from the time of Shakespeare. This 
characteristic feature has passed away. The court- 
yard has been subdivided and walled ; and the 
original character of this portion of the building has 
departed for ever. For the mementoes of Shake- 
speare's later life, we must look in the neighborhood 
of Stratford. Tradition assigns adventures and visits 
to many places in its vicinity ; but the most import- 
ant locality with which his name is connected is the 
Park of Sir Thomas Lucy at 

Charlecote. 

Charlecote was the scene of his deer-stealing adven- 
tures, which led, says tradition, to his quarrel with 
Sir Thomas, to a lampoon by the poet, which occa- 
sioned him to leave Stratford for London in greater 
haste than he wished, and produced his connection 
with the theatres. Of these tales we must speak further 
on. But first let us say a few words on this ancient 
mansion. Dugdale has given the history of Charlecote 
and its lords with much minuteness. It is mentioned in 
Domesday Book, and its old Saxon name Ceorlcote— 
the home of the husbandman — carries us back to 
years before the Conquest. The present house was 
built in 1558 by Thomas Lucy, who in 1593 was knight- 



1 8 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

ed by Queen Elizabeth. It stands at a short distance 
from, and at some little elevation above, the river 
Avon. The building forms three sides of a quad- 
rangle, the fourth being occupied by a handsome 
central gate house, some distance in advance of the 
main building. The octangular turrets on each side, 
and the oriel window over the gate are peculiar and 
pleasing features. The house retains its gables and 
angular towers, but has suffered from the introduction 
of the large and heavy sash windows of the time of 
William III. or George I. In Thomas' edition of 
Dugdale's Warwickshire, published in 1730, there is 
an interesting " East prospect of Charlecote," drawn 
by H. Beighton in 1722, which gives a curious bird's- 
eye view of the entire house and gardens in their 
original state; that is, the state in which Shakspeare 
saw them. Any modernization has affected the interior 
principally; the exterior aspect is now much the same 
as it was in the days of the poet. 

Washington Irving thus describes Charlecote in his 
" Sketch Book : " 

" I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's 
devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family 
seat of the Lucys, at Charlecot, and to ramble 
through the park where Shakespeare, in company 
with some of the roysters of Stratford, committed his 
youthful offense of deer-stealing. In this harebrained 
exploit we are told that he was taken prisoner, and 
carried to the keeper's lodge, where he remained all 
night in doleful captivity. When brought into the 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. jg 

presence of Sir Thomas Lucy, his treatment must 
have been galling and humiliating ; for it so wrought 
upon his spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade, 
which was affixed to the park gate at Charlecot.* 

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the 
knight so incensed him, that he applied to a lawyer 
at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force 
against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakespeare did 
not wait to brave the united puissance of a knight of 
the shire and a country attorney. He forthwith 
abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon and 
his paternal trade ; wandered away to London ; be- 
came a hanger-on to the theatres; then an actor; 
and, finally, wrote for the stage ; and thus, through 
the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost 
an indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an 
immortal poet. He retained, however, for a long 
time, a sense of the harsh treatment of the Lord of 
Charlecot, and revenged himself in his writings ; but 
in the sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir 
Thomas is said to be the original Justice Shallow, 

* The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon 
A parliament member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse, 
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it. 

He thinks himself great ; 

Yet an asse in his state, 
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate, 
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it. 



20 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by the justice's 
armorial bearings, which, like those of the knight, 
had white luces* in the quarterings. 

Various attempts have been made by his biogra- 
phers to soften and explain away this early trans- 
gression of the poet ; but I look upon it as one of 
those thoughtless exploits natural to his situation 
and turn of mind. Shakespeare, when young, had 
doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an 
ardent, undisciplined, and undirected genius. The 
poetic temperament has naturally something in it of 
the vagabond. When left to itself it runs loosely and 
wildly, and delights in everything eccentric and 
licentious. It is often a turn-up of a die, in the 
gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius 
shall turn out a great rogue or a great poet ; and 
had not Shakespeare's mind fortunately taken a liter- 
ary bias, he might have as daringly transcended all 
civil, as he has all dramatic laws. 

I have little doubt that, in early life, when running, 
like an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of 
Stratford, he was to be found in the company of all 
kinds of odd anomalous characters ; that he asso- 
ciated with all the madcaps of the place, and was 
one of those unlucky urchins, at mention of whom 
old men shake their heads, and predict that they will 
one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching 
in Sir Thomas Lucy's park w r as doubtless like a 

* The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon about 
Charlecot. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 2 i 

foray to a Scottish knight, and struck his eager, and 
as yet untamed, imagination, as something delight- 
fully adventurous.* 

* A proof of Shakspeare's random habits and associates in his 
youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked 
up at Stratford by the elder Ireland and mentioned in his " Pic- 
turesque Views on the Avon." 

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little 
market-town of Bidford, famous for its ale. Two societies of 
the village yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the 
Bidford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the 
neighboring villages to a contest of drinking. Among others, 
the people of Stratford were called out to prove the strength 
of their heads ; and in the number of the champions was Shake- 
speare, who, in spite of the proverb that " they who drink beer 
will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. 
The chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and 
sounded a retreat while they had yet legs to carry them off the 
field. They had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs fail- 
ing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab-tree, where 
they passed the night. It is still standing, and goes by the 
name of Shakespeare's tree. 

In the morning his companions awakened the bard, and pro- 
posed returning to Bidford, but he declined, saying he had 
had enough, having drank with 

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford. 

"The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the 
epithets thus given them : the people of Pebworth are still 
famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor : Hilborough is now 
called Haunted Hilborough; and Grafton is famous for the 
poverty of its soil." 



22 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

The old manor of Charlecot and its surrounding 
park still remain in the possession of the Lucy 
family, and are peculiarly interesting, from being 
connected with this whimsical but eventful circum- 
stance in the scanty history of the bard. As the 
house stood but little more than three miles' dis- 
tance from Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedes- 
trian visit, that I might stroll leisurely through some 
of those scenes from which Shakespeare must have 
derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. 

The country was yet naked and leafless ; but 
English scenery is always verdant, and the sudden 
change in the temperature of the weather was sur- 
prising in its quickening effects upon the landscape. 
It was inspiring and animating to witness this first 
awakening of spring; to feel its warm breath steal- 
ing over the senses ; to see the moist, mellow earth 
beginning to put forth the green sprout and the 
tender blade ; and the trees and shrubs, in their re- 
viving tints and bursting buds, giving the promise 
of returning foliage and flower. The cold snowdrop, 
that little borderer on the skirts of winter, was to be 
seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small 
gardens before the cottages. The bleating of the 
new-dropt lambs was faintly heard from the fields. 
The sparrow twittered about the thatched eaves and 
budding hedges ; the robin threw a livelier note into 
his late querulous wintry strain ; and the lark, spring- 
ing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, 
towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



23 



forth torrents of melody. As I watched the little 
songster, mounting up higher and higher, until his 
body was a mere speck on the white bosom of the 
cloud, while the ear was still filled with his music, it 
called to mind Shakespeare's exquisite little song in 
Cymbeline : — 

Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 

And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs, 

On chaliced flowers that lies. 

And winking mary-buds begin 

To ope their golden eyes ; 
With everything that pretty bin, 

My lady sweet arise ! 

Indeed the whole country about here is poetic 
ground : everything is associated with the idea of 
Shakespeare. Every old cottage that I saw, I fancied 
into some resort of his boyhood, where he had ac- 
quired his intimate knowledge of rustic life and 
manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild 
superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft 
into his dramas. For in his time, we are told, it 
was a popular amusement in winter evenings " to 
sit round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant 
knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, 
thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and 
friars." * 

* Scot, in his " Discoverie of Witchcraft," enumerates a host 
of these fireside fancies. " And they have so fraid us with 
bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies. 



24 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



My route for part of the way lay in sight of the 
Avon, which made a variety of the most fancy doub- 
lings and windings through a wide and fertile valley; 
sometimes glittering from among willows, 'which' 
fringed its borders ; sometimes disappearing among 
groves, or beneath green banks ; and sometimes 
rambling out into full view, and making an azure 
sweep round a slope of meadow land. This beauti- 
ful bosom of country is called the Vale of the Red 
Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems 
to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening 
landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver 
links of the Avon. 

After pursuing the road for about three miles, I 
turned off into a footpath, which led along the bor- 
ders of fields, and under hedgerows to a private gate 
of the park ; there was a stile, however, for the 
benefit of the pedestrian ; there being a public right 
of way through the grounds. I delight in these 
hospitable estates, in which every one has a kind of 
property — at least as far as the footpath is concern- 
ed. It in some measure reconciles a poor man to his 
lot. and, what is more, to the better lot of his neigh- 
bor, thus to have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown 

satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, 
centaurs, dwarf es, giantes, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, 
changelings, incubus, Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, 
the man in the oke, the hell-waine, the her drake, the puckle, 
Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such 
other bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadowes." 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



25 



open for his recreation. He breathes the pure air 
as freely, and lolls as luxuriously under the shade, as 
the lord of the soil ; and if he has not the privilege 
of calling all that he sees his own, he has not, at the 
same time, the trouble of paying for it, and keeping 
it in order. 

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks 
and elms, whose vast size bespoke the growth of 
centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their 
branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary 
nests in the tree-tops. The eye ranged through a 
long, lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the 
view but a distant statue ; and a vagrant deer stalk- 
ing like a shadow across the opening. 

There is something about these stately old avenues 
that has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely 
from the pretended similarity of form, but from their 
bearing the evidence of long duration, and of having 
had their origin in a period of time with which we 
associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken 
also the long-settled dignity, and proudly concentra- 
ted independence of an ancient family ; and I have 
heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, 
when speaking of the sumptuous palaces of modern 
gentry, that "money could do much with stone and 
mortar, but, thank Heaven, there was no such thing 
as suddenly building up an avenue of oaks." 

It was from wandering in early life among this 
rich scenery, and about the romantic solitudes of 
the adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then formed 



26 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

a part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakespeare's 
commentators have supposed he derived his noble 
forest meditations of Jaques, and the enchanting 
woodland pictures in "As You Like It." It is in' 
lonely wanderings through such scenes, that the 
mind drinks deep but quiet draughts of inspiration, 
and becomes intensely sensible of the beauty and 
majesty of nature. The imagination kindles into 
reverie and rapture ; vague but exquisite images and 
ideas keep breaking upon it ; and we revel in a mute 
and almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It 
was in some such mood, and perhaps under one of 
those very trees before me, which threw their broad 
shades over the grassy banks and quivering waters 
of the Avon, that the poet's fancy may have sallied 
forth into that little song which breathes the very 
soul of a rural voluptuary : — 

Under the greenwood tree 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry throat 
Unto the sweet bird's note, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither. 

Here shall he see 

No enemy, 
But winter and rough weather. 

I had now come in sight of the house. It is a 
large building of brick, with stone quoins, and is in 
the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having 
been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior 
remains very nearly in its original state, and may be 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



27 



considered a fair specimen of the residence of a 
wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great 
gateway opens from the park into a kind of court- 
yard in front of the house, ornamented with a grass- 
plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway is in 
imitation of the ancient barbican ; being a kind of 
outpost, and flanked by towers ; though evidently 
for mere ornament, instead of defence. The front 
of the house is completely in the old style ; with 
stone-shafted casements, a great bow-window of 
heavy stone-work, and a portal with armorial bear- 
ings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the 
building is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt 
ball and weathercock. 

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes 
a bend just at the foot of a gently sloping bank, 
which sweeps down from the rear of the house. 
Large herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon 
its borders ; and swans were sailing majestically 
upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venerable 
old mansion, I called to mind FalstafFs encomium 
on Justice Shallow's abode, and the affected indif- 
ference and real vanity of the latter : 

" Falstaff. You hare a goodly dwelling and a rich. 
" Shallow. Barren, barren, barren ; beggars all, beggars all, 
Sir John : — marry, good sir." 

Whatever may have been the joviality of the old 
mansion in the days of Shakespeare, it had now an 
air of stillness and solitude. The great iron gate- 
way that opened into the courtyard was locked ; 



28 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

there was no show of servants bustling about the 
place ; the deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, 
being no longer harried by the moss-troopers of 
Stratford. The only sign of domestic life that I 
met with was a white cat, stealing with wary look 
and stealthy pace towards the stables, as if on 
some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to men- 
tion the carcass of a scoundrel crow which I saw 
suspended against the barn wall, as it shows that the 
Lucys still inherit that lordly abhorrence of poachers, 
and maintain that rigorous exercise of territorial 
power which was so strenuously manifested in the 
case of the bard. 

After prowling about for some time, I at length 
found my way to a lateral portal, which was the 
every-day entrance to the mansion. I was court- 
eously received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, 
with the civility and communicativeness of her order, 
showed me the interior of the house. The greater 
part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to 
modern tastes and modes of living. There is a fine 
old oaken staircase ; and the great hall, that noble 
feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains 
much of the appearance it must have had in the days 
of Shakespeare. The ceiling is arched and lofty ; 
and at one end is a gallery, in which stands an 
organ. The weapons and trophies of the chase, 
which formerly adorned the hall of a country gentle- 
man, have made way for family portraits. There is 
a wide, hospitable fire-place, calculated for an ample 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 2 g 

old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying place 
of winter festivity. On the opposite side of the hall 
is the huge Gothic bow-window, with stone shafts, 
which looks out upon the courtyard. Here are 
emblazoned, in stained glass, the armorial bearings 
of the Lucy family for many generations, some being 
dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe in the 
quarterings the three white luces, by which the char- 
acter of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of 
Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in the first scene 
of the " Merry Wives of Windsor," where the Justice 
is in a rage with Falstaff for having "beaten his 
men, killed his deer, and broken into his lodge." 
The poet had, no doubt, the offences of himself and 
his comrades in mind at the time, and we may sup- 
pose the family pride and vindictive threats of the 
puissant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous 
indignation of Sir Thomas. 

" Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not ; I will make a Star 
Chamber matter of it ; if he were twenty John Falstaff s, he 
shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esq. 

Slender* In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and 
Coram. 

Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum. 

Slender. Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, 
master parson ; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, war- 
rant, quittance, or obligation, Armigero. 

Shallow. Ay, that I do ; and have done any time these three 
hundred years. 

Slender. All his successors gone before him have done 't, 
and all his ancestors that come after him may ; they may give 
the dozen white-luces in their coat. ***** 



3o 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



Shallow. The council shall hear it ; it is a riot. 

Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot ; there is no 
fear of Got in a riot ; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear 
the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot ; take your vizaments in 
that. 

Shallow. Ha ! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword 
should end it ! " 

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait 
by Sir Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great 
beauty of the time of Charles the Second. The old 
housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the 
picture, and informed me that this lady had been 
sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away a 
great portion of the family estate, among which was 
that part of the park where Shakspeare and his com- 
rades had killed the deer. The lands thus lost had 
not been entirely regained by the family even at the 
present day. It is but justice to this recreant dame 
to confess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and 
arm. 

The picture which most attracted my attention 
was a great painting over the fireplace, containing 
likenesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family, who 
inhabited the hall in the latter part of Shakespeare's 
lifetime. I at first thought that it was the vindictive 
knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that 
it was his son ; the only likeness extant of the for- 
mer being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of 
the neighboring hamlet of Charlecot.* The picture 

* This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight 
in complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 3I 

gives a lively idea of the customs and manners of 
the time. Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doub- 
let ; white shoes with roses in them ; and has a 
peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, " a 
cane-colored beard." His lady is seated on the 
opposite side of the picture, in wide ruff and long 
stomacher, and the children have a most venerable 
stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and span- 
iels are mingled in the family group ; a hawk is 
seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of 
the children holds a bow ; all intimating the knight's 

her tomb is the following inscription, which, if really composed 
by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual level 
of Master Shallow : — 

" Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy, wife of Sir Thomas Lucy 
of Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and 
heir of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester 
Esquire, who departed out of this wretched world to her 
heavenly kingdom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our 
Lord God 1595 and of her age 60 and three. All the time of 
her lyfe a true and faythf ul servant of her good God, never 
detected of any cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love 
to her husband most faythful and true. In friendship most 
constant ; to what in trust was committed unto her most secret. 
In wisdom excelling. In governing of her house, bringing up 
of youth in ye fear of God that did converse with her most rare 
and singular. A great maintayner of hospitality. Greatly 
esteemed of her betters ; misliked of none unless of the envy- 
ous. When all is spoken that can be saide a woman so gar- 
nished with virtue as not to be bettered and hardly to be 
equalled by any. As shee lived most virtuously so shee died 
most Godly. Set downe by him yt best did knowe what hath 
byn written to be true. 

Thomas Lucye. 



32 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

skill in hunting, hawking, and archery — so indispen- 
sable to an accomplished gentleman in those days.* 
I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the 
hall had disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with 
the stately elbow-chair of carved oak, in which the 
country squire of former days was wont to sway the 
sceptre of empire over his rural domains ; and in 
which, it might be presumed, the redoubted Sir 
Thomas sat enthroned in awful state when the recre- 
ant Shakspeare was brought before him. As I like to 
deck out pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased 
myself with the idea that this very hall had been the 
scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the 
morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied 
to myself the rural potentate, surrounded by his 
body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving- 
men, with their badges ; while the luckless culprit 
was brought in, forlorn and chopf alien, in the cus- 



* Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his 
time, observes, " his housekeeping is seen much in the differ- 
ent families of dogs, and serving men attendant on their ken- 
nels ; and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his dis- 
course. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is 
exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted with the sport, and 
have his fist gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his descrip- 
tion of a Mr. Hastings, remarks, " he kept all sorts of hounds 
that run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and had hawks of 
all kinds, both long and short- winged. His great hall was com- 
monly strewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk-perches, 
hounds, spaniels, and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with 
brick, lay some of the choicest terriers, hounds, and spaniels." 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 33 

tody of gamekeepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, 
and followed by a rabble rout of country clowns. I 
fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping 
from the half-opened doors ; while from the gallery 
the fair daughters of the knight leaned gracefully 
forward, eyeing the youthful prisoner with that pity 
" that dwells in womanhood." — Who would have 
thought that this poor varlet, thus trembling before 
the brief authority of a country squire, and the sport 
of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of 
princes, the theme of all tongues and ages, the 
dictator to the human mind, and was to confer 
immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and a 
lampoon ! 

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the 
garden, and I felt inclined to visit the orchard and 
arbor where the Justice treated Sir John Falstaff and 
Cousin Silence " to a last year's pippin of his own 
grafting, with a dish of caraways ; " but I had 
already spent so much of the day in my ramblings 
that I was obliged to give up any further investiga- 
tions. When about to take my leave I was gratified 
by the civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler 
that I would take some refreshment — an instance of 
good old hospitality which, I grieve to say, we castle- 
hunters seldom meet with in modern days. I make 
no doubt it is a virtue which the present representa- 
tive of the Lucys inherits from his ancestors ; for 
Shakespeare, even in his caricature, makes Justice 
Shallow importunate in this respect, as witness his 
pressing instances to Falstaff : — 
3 



34 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



" By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night * * * I 
will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; excuses shall 
not be admitted ; there is no excuse shall serve ; you shall not 
be excused * * * Some pigeons, Davy ; a couple of short 
legged hens ; a joint of mutton ; and any pretty little tiny kick- 
shaws, tell William cook." 

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. 
My mind had become so completely possessed by 
the imaginary scenes and characters connected with 
it, that I seemed to be actually living among them. 
Everything brought them, as it were, before my 
eyes ; and, as the door of the dining-room opened, 
I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master 
Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty : — 

" 'T is merry in hall, when beards wag all, 
And welcome merry shrove-tide ! " 




THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 35 



Anne Hathaway's Cottage. 

A quick walk by a field path, along which our 
Poet must have often wandered, leads to the 
cottage of his " lady-love." It is a pleasant walk, 
a short mile from Stratford. Quiet and luxuriant is 
the landscape which meets the eye all around : 
cornfields, and pasture-land and snug farms : the 
quiet old-fashioned gables of Shottery before ; the 
wood-embosomed houses of Stratford behind ; where 
from among the trees shoots up the elegant spire 
of one of the most beautiful of English country 
churches. 

Shottery abounds with old half-timbered houses ; 
and one, now a little road-side inn, called "The 
Shakespeare," is a capital example, and stands beside 
the field-path at the commencement of the lane lead- 
ing to Anne's house. Proceeding down this lane, we 
cross a brook \ a few yards farther and we reach the 
house. 

It is a long thatched tenement of timber and plas- 
ter, substantially built upon a foundation of squared 
slabs of lias shale, which is a characteristic of the 
Warwickshire cottages, and is seen in Shakespeare's 
birthplace, as already noted. On looking up at the 
central chimney, the spectator may be startled at 
the date, which is (I H 1697.) It is cut on stone, and 
let into the bricks ; and simply records the reparation 



3 6 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

of the house by John Hathaway, who appears to have 
clone much for its comforts, as we shall see. But 
the house itself has come in for a share of the doubts 
which have succeeded the credulity of past times, 
and it has been declared not to be Anne's father's. 
Mr. Knight has sifted the evidence, and triumphantly- 
disproved the doubt. John Hathaway held property 
at Shottery in 1543. Richard Hathaway, the father 
of Anne, was intimate with Shakespeare's father, for 
the latter stood as his bondman in an action at law 
dated 1576. There is no doubt that the Hathaways 
held the house here long before ; the purchase was, 
however, only effected in 1606. That Anne should 
be described as " of Stratford " in the marriage-bond 
is not singular : Shottery is but a hamlet of the parish 
of Stratford. 

This house, like Shakespeare's birthplace, is subdi- 
vided into three tenements. The square, compact, and 
taller part of the building forms one house. The 
other two are divided by the passage, which runs 
entirely through the lower half, from the door in 
front, to which the steps lead, to that at the back. 
This passage serves for both tenements. That to 
the right on entering consists of one large room be- 
low, with a chimney extending the whole width of 
the house, with an oven and boiler ; showing that 
this was the principal kitchen when the house was all 
in one. The door to the left leads into the parlor. 
It is a large, low-roofed room, ceiled with strong 
beams of timber, and much resembling the kitchen 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 37 

of Shakespeare's birthplace. A " bacon cupboard " of 
similar construction, is also on the left side of the 
fire-place, upon the transverse bar of which is cut 
" I H ' E H ' I B * 1697," the initials of John Hath- 
away, his wife Anne, and, it may be, the maker of 
the door, which has been cut ornamentally. The 
first two initials and the date are the same as upon 
the large chimney, which belongs to this room, and 
which has been already noticed. Upon an old table 
beneath the window, " M • H " is carved ; all indica- 
tive of the proprietors. Mr. Knight says : " The 
Shottery property, which was called Hewland, re- 
mained with the descendants of the Hathaways till 
1838." The present resident in the central tenement 
is the granddaughter of John Hathaway Taylor, a 
relative, whose Bible, dated 1776, still lies on the 
dresser. He was a man who cared little for relics, 
or the associations connected with the house, which 
was then seldom visited. The furniture, and a full 
service of antique pewter, which had garnished the 
dresser for many years, in his time disappeared. 
When Ireland visited this cottage in 1792 he speaks 
of the descendants of the family as " poor and numer- 
ous ; " and at this time he saw and purchased an old 
oak chair, which he has engraved in his Picturesque 
Views on the Avon. He says it was called " Shake- 
spere's courting chair." With a similar desire to 
please relic-lovers to that which has been already 
shown to have once existed in Shakspeare's birthplace 
concerning the chair there, this chair, although long 



38 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

since gone, has a successor dignified by the same 
name, in an old settle in the passage through the 
house, and which has but one old bit of wood, the 
seat, in it. It is but fair to add, that those who are 
skeptical are not met by bold assertions of its gen- 
uineness, although there be no denial of its possible 
claim to that quality ; but all credulous and believing 
persons are allowed the full benefit of their faith. In 
addition to Shakespeare's chair, Ireland was shown " a 
purse which had been likewise his, and handed down 
from him to his granddaughter, Lady Barnard, and 
from her to the Hathaway family" then existing. At 
the time of the Stratford Jubilee, George, the brother 
of David Garrick, purchased from the old lady who 
then lived here an inkstand and a pair of fringed 
gloves, said to have been worn by Shakespeare. David, 
with his usual carefulness, purchased no such doubt- 
ful ware. 

The bedroom over this parlor is ascended by a 
ladder-like stair ; and here stands an old carved bed- 
stead, certainly as old as the Shakespearian era. It is 
elaborately and tastefully executed, and has been 
handed down as an heir-loom with the house. In 
Ireland's time, the old woman of the house, who was 
then upwards of seventy, declared that she had slept 
in the bed from her childhood, and was always told 
it had been there ever since the house was built. 
Whether there in Anne's time, or brought there since, 
it is ancient enough for her or her family to have 
-slept in, and adds an interest to the quaint bed-room 



THE HOME OE SHAKESPEARE. 39 

ill the roof. In a chest beside it is a pillow-case and 
sheet, marked " E. H.," and ornamented with open- 
work down the centre ; they are of home-spun fabric, 
the work of " the spinster " when single country girls 
earned the name. 

The back-view of the house is more picturesque 
than the front one. The ground rises from the road 
to a level with the back door. Tall trees over-shadow 
it, and a rustic stile beside them leads into a 
meadow, where stand some cottages as old as the 
home of the Hathaways. There is much to interest 
the student-lover of the old rural life of England in 
Shottery. 

From the period of Shakespeare's marriage to that 
of his retirement from London, there is nothing to 
connect him with Stratford and its neighborhood. 
We must look elsewhere. But with the natural love 
of a true-hearted man, we find that he made his na- 
tive town the home he visited whenever he had the 
opportunity, and chose for his place of retirement 
when the busy metropolitan duties he had fulfilled 
ensured him competence. In 

New Place, 

the house he had purchased at the early age of $3 
he died at that of 52. "He was wont to go up to 
his native country once a year," says Aubrey ; and he 
had so intimately connected himself with Stratford 
by the purchase of property and other things, that 
his mind was evidently fixed on that town with an 



4° 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



endearing affection through life, and which led him 
to look towards it as his resting-place. 

New Place, we are informed by Dugdale, was origi- 
nally erected by Sir Hugh Clopton, temp. Henry VII. 
It was, he says, " a fair house, built of brick and tim- 
ber." It was sold to the Underhill family, and was 
purchased from them by Shakespeare in 1597, who 
having repaired and remodelled it to his own mind, 
changed the name to New Place, which it retained 
until its demolition. 

Shakspeare, by his will, gave it to his daughter, Mrs. 
Hall, for her life, and then to her daughter Elizabeth, 
afterwards Lady Barnard. On her death it was sold 
to Sir Edward Walker, whose only daughter marry- 
ing Sir John Clopton, it again came into the hands 
of its ancient possessors. Sir John gave it to his 
younger son, Sir Hugh, who resided in it during the 
latter part of his life, and died there in Dec. 1 7 5 1 . By 
him the mansion was repaired, and the modern front 
built to it ; and here, in 1742, he entertained Macklin, 
Garrick and Dr. Delaney, beneath the mulberry-tree 
which Shakespeare had planted in the garden. 

By Sir Hugh's son-in-law the mansion was sold, 
in 1753, to the Rev. F. Gastrell, a man of unhappy 
temper, who being annoyed by visitors requesting to 
see the mulberry-tree, ruthlessly cut it down in 1756 
to save himself the trouble of showing it. This ren- 
dered him exceedingly unpopular in the town, and he 
resided there but seldom : but the house being rated 
as if he had constantly lived there, in a fit of ill hu- 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 4I 

mor he declared that that house should never be as- 
sessed again, — he pulled it clown, sold the materials, 
and left the town universally execrated. There are 
no ruins of the house as it was in Shakespeare's time. 

The view so frequently engraved is an imposition. 
Malone first published it " from an ancient survey," 
in which it is not stated to represent New Place, or 
any other place in particular. 

He ordered the discoverer of this survey, Mr. Jor- 
dan of Stratford, to add the arms of Shakespeare over 
the door, because "they were likely to have been 
there!" and to add " neat wooden pales " in fiont. 
To which liberal direction Jordan added the porch ! 
and so originated this authentic picture. A view of 
New Place, as altered by Sir Hugh Clopton, and as 
it appeared previous to its demolition, maybe seen in 
Mr. R. B. Wheler's " History of Stratford-on-Avon." 
Not a feature of the ancient Shakespearian residence 
had then been suffered to remain. In the garden of 
Mr. Hunt, to whose family Mrs. Gastrell sold the 
site of New Place in 1775, are two fragments of 
the house. One is a stone lintel, the other a portion 
of sculpture, in stone also, which may have been 
placed over a door. It is ornamented with a shield, 
but the bearings cannot now be distinguished, owing 
to decay. On each side are groups of flowers, also 
much injured by time. 

It is traditionally reported that the White Lion Inn 
was built from the materials of New Place. The 
panelling of an entire room was fitted up in the par- 



42 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

lor of the Falcon Inn opposite, where it still remains. 
It exhibits a series of square sunk panels, covering the 
entire walls, the upper row being elongated, with a 
plain cornice and dentels above. From the similarity 
of the panel and cornice upon which the portrait of 
Shakspeare is painted, already spoken of as standing 
in his birth-room, and the tradition that it was 
brought from the White Lion Inn, it may have been 
also a part of the decoration of New Place when it 
was last "repaired and beautified." 

There is another and an apparently genuine relic 
of New Place at present in the possession of the 
Court family, who own Shakspeare's house. It is a 
square of glass, measuring 9 inches by 7, in which a 
circular piece is leaded, having the letters " W. A. S." 
for William and Anne Shakspeare, tied in a " true 
lover's knot," and the date, 161 5, the year before 
the Poet's death, beneath. A relative of the late 
Mrs. Court, whose ancestor had been employed to 
pull down New Place, had saved this square of glass, 
but attached little value to it. He gave it to her, 
but she had an honest dislike to the many pretenders 
to relics, and never showed this glass unless it was 
expressly requested by the few who had heard of it. 
She told her story simply, made no comments, and 
urged no belief. The letters and figures are certainly 
characteristic : they are painted in dark brown out- 
line, tinted with yellow ; the border is also yellow. 
The lead is decayed, and the glass loose. It alto- 
gether appears to be as genuine a relic as any that 
have been offered. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 43 



Shakespeare's Tomb 

is in the chancel of the beautiful church of Stratford, 
It is placed against a blank window, on the left of 
the spectator, as he faces the altar. How soon it 
was erected afrer the Poet's death, we cannot confi- 
dently say; but that it was before 1623 we can 
ascertain from Leonard Digges' verses prefixed to 
the first edition of the Poet's works. 

A half length figure of him is placed in a niche; 
above is his arms, on each side of which are seated 
cherubs, one holding an inverted torch, with a skull 
beside him, the other a spade ; on the apex above is 
another skull. Beneath the cushion upon which the 
Poet is writing is inscribed : 

JVDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM, 
TERRA TEGIT POPVLVS 3VLERET, OLYMPVS HABET. 

STAY PASSENGER ; WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST ? 
READ, IF THOV CANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST 
WITHIN THIS MONVMENT : SHAKSPEARE, WITH WHOME 
QVTCKE NATVRE DIDE ; WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK YS TOMBE 
FAR MORE THEN COST ; SITH ALL YT HE HATH WRITT 
LEAVES LIVING ART BVT PAGE TO SERVE HIS WITT. 

Obiit. Ano. Doi. 1616. 
Aetatis 53, Die, 23 Ap. 

The half-length effigy of Shakespeare was originally 
painted after nature. The eyes were a light hazel ; the 
hair and beard auburn. The dress was a scarlet doublet 
slashed on the breast, over which was a loose black 
gown without sleeves. The upper part of the cush- 
ion was crimson, the lower green ; the cords which 



44 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

bound it and the tassels were gilt. John Ward, 
grandfather of the Kembles, caused the tomb to be 
repaired and the original colors restored in 1748, 
from the profits of the performance of Othello. In 
1793 Malone, in an evil hour, gained permission to 
paint it white ; and also the effigy of Shakspeare's 
friend, John Combe, who lies beside the altar. Mr. 
Knight has most justly stigmatized this act as one of 
"unscrupulous insolence." Certainly Malone was 
at much pains to write himself down an ass. 

We learn from Dugdale's correspondence that the 
sculptor of this monument was Gerard Johnson. His 
work has been subjected to much criticism, particu- 
larly by such as are anxious to have Shakespeare not 
only a great poet, but a handsome man. This bust 
does not please them. Mr. Skottowe declares that 
it "is not only at variance with the tradition of 
Shakespeare's appearance having been prepossessing, 
but irreconcilable with the belief of its ever having 
borne a striking resemblance to any human being." 
A most sweeping conclusion, against which most 
modern authors and artists have arrayed them- 
selves. It is a curious fact that Martin Droeshout's 
portrait, prefixed to the folio of 1623, and beneath 
which Ben Jonson has affixed verses attesting its 
accuracy, and which all his " fellows " who aided 
in this edition, as well as others who knew and 
loved the man, could also confirm, bears a decided 
similarity to this bust. Marshall seems to have 
depended on the same authority for the portrait he 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



45 



engraved for the edition of Shakspeare's poems in 
1640. All agree in one striking feature, the noble 
forehead and quiet, unostentatious, kindly expression 
of feature which must have belonged to " the gentle 
Shakespeare." These early artists appear to have 
been literal copyists, and the bust at Stratford is the 
best, and I incline to think the only authority to be 
depended on. It was probably cut from a cast 
taken after death; and it is remarkable that it 
stands as good a test phrenologically as if it had been 
adapted to the Poet — a singular instance of its 
truth. Another corroborative proof exists in what 
has been objected to as inaccurate, the length of 
the upper lip ; but Sir Walter Scott, whose intellect 
most nearly approached the Poet, had the same 
feature and the same commanding head. 

The ghastly white paint upon the bust, the high 
position it occupies in the church, and the bad light 
that there falls on it, hinders the due appreciation 
of its merits. The features are regular, nay, hand- 
some and intelligent ; but it is evident that such a 
head depended on its living expression, and that 
then it must have been eminently gentle and pre- 
possessing. The lower part of the face, though in- 
clined to be fleshy, does not injure the features, 
which are all delicately formed, and the side-view of 
the head is very fine. An intense study of this 
bust enforces the belief, that all the manifold pecu- 
liarities of feature so characteristic of the Poet, and 
which no chance could have originated, and no the- 



46 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

ory account for, must have resulted from its being 
a transcript of the man ; one that has received the 
confirmation of his own living relatives and friends, 
the best and only portrait to be now relied on. 

The gravestones of the Shakespeare family lie in 
a row in front of the altar rails, upon the second 
step leading to it ; that of his wife is immediately 
beneath his own. It is a flat stone, the surface, which 
is much injured by time, having a small brass plate 
let in it with this inscription. 

HERE LYETH INTERRED THE BODY OF ANNE, 
WIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, WHO DEPART- 
ED THIS LIFE the 6 day of Aug. : 1623, being of the age 
of 67 years ; 

Vbera tu mater, tu lac vitamq ; dedisti, 
Vae mihi pro tanto munere Saxa dabo, 

Quam mallem amoveat lapidem bonus Angerore' 
Exeat Christi corpus imago tua ; 

Sed nil vota valent, venias cito Christe, resurget, 
Clausa licet tumulo mater, et astra petet. 

Next comes that placed over the body of the Poet. 
It is right, here, to state that the four lines upon it 
have been generally printed with an absurd mixture 
of great and small letters. The only peculiarity it 
possesses over ordinary inscriptions is the abbrevia- 
tion for the word that, and the grouping together 
of some of the letters after the fashion of a mono- 
gram. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 47 

GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE, 
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE; 
BLESTE BE YE MAN Yt SPARES THES STONES, 
AND CVRST BE HE Yt MOVES MY BONES 

Other instances of similar usages are common in 
inscriptions of the same age. There is a traditionary- 
story, bearing date 1693, which says "his wife and 
daughters did earnestly desire to be laid in the same 
grave with him," but that " not one for fear of the 
curse above said, dare touch his gravestone." 

" The inscription on the tombstone has not been 
without its effect, " says Mr. Irving. It has prevented 
the removal of Shakespeare's remains from the 
bosom of his native place to Westminster Abbey, 
which was at one time contemplated. A few years 
since also, as some laborers were digging to make 
an adjoining vault, the earth caved in, so as to leave 
a vacant space almost like an arch, through which 
one might have reached into his grave. No one, 
however, presumed to meddle with his remains so 
awfully guarded by a malediction ; and lest any of 
the idle or curious or any collector of relics, should 
be tempted to commit depredations, the old Sexton 
kept watch over the place for two days, until the 
vault was finished and the aperture closed again. 
He told me that he had made bold to look in at the 
hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing 
but dust. It was something, I thought, to have seen 
the dust of Shakespeare. Next to this grave are 
those of his wife, his favorite daughter, Mrs. Hall, 



48 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



and others of his family. On a tomb close by, also, 
is a full-length effigy of his old friend John Combe, 
of usurious memory, on whom he is said to have writ- 
ten a ludicrous epitaph. There are other monuments 
around, but the mind refuses to dwell on anything 
that is not connected with Shakespeare. This idea 
pervades the place ; the whole pile seems but as 
his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer checked 
and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect con- 
fidence ; other traces of him may be false or dubi- 
ous, but here is palpable evidence and absolute cer- 
tainty. As I trod the sounding pavement, there was 
something intense and thrilling in the idea, that in 
very truth, the remains of Shakespeare were mould- 
ering beneath my feet. It was a long time before I 
could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; and as 
I passed through the churchyard, I plucked a branch 
from one of the yew trees, the only relic that I have 
brought from Stratford."'' 

Xext to that of Shakespeare lies a stone commem- 
orating the resting place of Thomas Nash, who 
married the only daughter of the poet's daughter, 
Susanna; this lady afterwards married Sir John 
Barnard, and died at Abington, near Northampton, 
in 1670, in whom the direct line of the poet's issue 
ceased. Dr. John Hall, her father, lies next ; and 
last comes Susanna, his wife. The whole of 
the rhyming part of her epitaph had been 
obliterated, and upon the place was cut an in- 
scription to the memory of one Richard Watts. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 49 

This in its turn has been erased, and the original 
inscription restored by lowering the surface of the 
stone and re-cutting the letters. The tombs of Hall 
and Nash have also been renovated by deepening 
the letters and recutting the armorial bearings, which 
has been done under the judicious and careful super- 
intendence of R. B. Wheler, Esq., of Stratford, at the 
sole expense of the Rev. W. Harness, whose public- 
spirited and honorable act deserves as much praise 
as Malone's miserable meddling does reprobation. 

Washington Irving concludes his " Sketch ; Strat- 
ford-on-Avon," in these words : " On returning to 
my inn I could not but reflect on the singular gift of 
the poet, to be able thus to spread the magic of his 
mind over the very face of nature, to give to things 
and places a charm and character not their own, and 
to turn this " working-day world " into a perfect fairy- 
land. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell 
operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagina- 
tion and the heart. Under the wizard influence of 
Shakespeare, I had been walking all day in a com- 
plete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape 
through the prism of poetry, which tinged every 
object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been 
surrounded with fancied beings, with mere airy 
nothings conjured up by poetic power ; yet which, 
to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard 
Jaques soliloquize beneath his oak ; had beheld 
the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring 
through the woodlands ; and above all, had been 
4 



5 o THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

once more present in spirit with fat Jack FalstafT 
and his contemporaries, from the august Justice 
Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender and the 
sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and bless- 
ings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull reali- 
ties of life with innocent illusions ; who has spread 
exquisite and unbought pleasures in my checkered 
path, and beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour 
with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of social 
life! 

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my 
return, I paused to contemplate the distant church 
in which the poet lies buried, and could not but 
exult in the malediction which has kept his ashes 
undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What 
honor could his name have derived from being 
mingled in dusty companionship with the epitaphs 
and escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled 
multitude ? What would a crowded corner in West- 
minster Abbey have been, compared with this rever- 
end pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness 
as his sole mausoleum ! The solicitude about the 
grave may be but the offspring of an over-wrought 
sensibility ; but human nature is made up of foibles 
and prejudices, and its best and tenderest affections 
are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who 
has sought renown about the world, and has reaped 
a full harvest of worldly favor, will find, after all, 
that there is no love, no admiration, no applause, so 
sweet to the soul as that which springs up in his 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



5 1 



native place. It is there that he seeks to be gathered 
in peace and honor among his kindred and his 
early friends. And when the weary heart and fail- 
ing head begin to warn him that the evening of life 
is drawing on, he turns as fondly as does the infant 
to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep in the bosom 
of the scene of his childhood. 

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youth- 
ful bard when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a 
doubtful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his 
paternal home, could he have foreseen that, before 
many years, he should return to it covered with 
renown ; that his name should become the boast and 
glory of his native place ; that his ashes should be 
religiously guarded as its most precious treasure ; 
and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were 
fixed in tearful contemplation, should one day 
become the beacon, towering amidst the gentle land- 
scape, to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation 
to his tomb 1 




21 Cetter— 0tratf0r&~0tt~2U)0tt. 

BY 

JOSEPH F. SABIN. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



A LETTER STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. 

Oxford, May, 1869. 



Dear 



I have just got back from Stratford-upon-Avon, 
and well aware of thine admiration of the great 
bard, I shall deliberately impose upon thee some 
account of my visit. So far as the length of the let- 
ter is concerned T shall surely get into trouble, for 
the more I write, the more must deficiencies be ex- 
hibited, whilst brevity with such a subject and with- 
out the soul of wit, must be as refreshing as husks 
to a dry throat. Indeed, did I set out to write all 
about Stratford thou shouldst herewith get a greate 
booke ; did I seek to treat the theme with ornate 
elegance, or to assume the lofty diction appropriate 
to the subject, the commencement would be the be- 
ginning of the end. As there are so many reasons 
" de me taire" it is well to remark that the interest 
which one's friends take in personal memoranda is 
so strong that John Smith takes more entertainment 
in hearing his brother's adventures in Venice than 
in Lord Byron's 

" I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs 
A Palace and a Prison on each hand." 



5 6 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

On the way to Stratford I passed through War- 
wick, and got a glimpse of the grand old castle, 
whose lofty towers and battlements sent my wits 
a wandering into the days of yore — of bows and ar- 
rows, knights and fair ladies, tournaments, chivalry 
and enchantment. Who has not heard of the won- 
derful Guy of Warwick, and, again, of the no less 
powerful, if less mythical, Earl, hight the king- 
maker ? 

Romantic Kenilworth is not far off — but alas for 
the cobweb structure whereon fancy commences to 
build — the whistle of the locomotive sends it to the 
four winds — the books which are before me are not 
Don Quixote's library with the Amadis de Gaul, or 
Palmerin of England — the red and yellow covered 
books containing the veritable histories of the great 
Guy of Warwick and of the Castle of Kenilworth are 
parts of the furniture of a railway station. Cervantes 
killed poor Don Quixote, and steam is stamping out 
his inheritance. 

Stratford-upon-Avon is not far from Warwick, and 
useful, if not romantic, steam, soon brought me to 
its station, and for the first time I saw Shakespeare's 
natal city, nestled in the heart of merry England, 
and laved by the " flowery " Avon. Spring-time had 
put on a new coat of lovely verdure, and the land- 
scape was gentle, the eye was filled with pleasure as 
the heart was gratified. 

The graceful spire of Holy Trinity is the most 
prominent object in the general view of the village, 
a view not striking but quietly agreeable. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 57 

I soon made my way to Henley street, to the house 
wherein Shakespeare first saw the light. The build- 
ing at present is "restored." It had undergone 
changes and alterations, but is now made to resemble 
its state as in Shakespearian days. The house is 
known, technically, as half-timbered, the framework 
of wood is not covered with plaster. 

The room in which he was born is square, and of 
goodly size, the ceiling is rather low, and the old 
beams, black with time, are in open view. The great 
oaken beam forming the chimney piece attracted my 
notice. I found a large piece had been cut out of 
the corner, and remarking it, was informed that some 
Americans had sawn it out — that they had induced 
the person in charge of the premises to go out (to 
obtain change), and that in her absence they had cut 
out the wood, — as I had no opportunity of cross- 
questioning my informant I do not altogether accept 
the story. There is a window in this room the glass 
of which is filled with names, cut by diamonds. 
Among them I found Walter Scott's. I hinted that I 
should like to inscribe my name among them, if I 
could find room, but received for answer, what I ex- 
pected, — that it was not allowed. 

Of course I sat upon the chair, the veritable chaip 
wherein Shakespeare took his ease. How much 
gratified I ought to have been, or how much of a 
foundation for the inspiration of genius, I rested 
upon, I cannot decide, for most certainly the chair 
bad been re-bottomed within a short period, even 



5 8 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

since Irving had sat in it. Alas ! what are we with- 
out faith ! — with faith and new bottoms, that chair 
may be as immortal as Bottom the Weaver. 

The house, which is a large one, is now appropri- 
ately used as a museum, and there are many items 
of interest to visitors, and matters which, both in an 
historical and pecuniary sense, are of great value. 
Old papers, old odds and ends of all sorts, and sev- 
eral of the plays of Shakespeare as they originally 
appeared in little quarto volumes. 

A catalogue of the books and curiosities of the 
museum would occupy many pages. The titles of the 
first editions of Shakespeare's plays are somewhat 
quaint in orthography : "The most excellent Historie 
of the Merchant of Venice, with the extreame crueltie 
of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd Merchant, in 
cutting a just pound of his flesh, and the obtaining 
of Portia by the choyse of three chests. 1600. The 
tragicall Historie of Hamlet, prince of Denmarke. 
Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as muche 
againe as it was, according to the true and perfect 
coppie. 1604." 

Mr. James Lenox, and another New York collec- 
tor of my acquaintance have between them some 
thirty of these little books, some of which cost as 
much as ,£200, and one, I believe, gave birth to 
enough enthusiasm to coax over fifteen hundred 
dollars across the water. The genius of Biblioma- 
nia has even carried to the West early editions of 
this man's works — to places where in Shakespeare's 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 59 

time, the only leaves were on the trees and they 
who turned them the whistling winds. 

The desk which is exhibited as Shakespeare's is 
in a very sad condition ; it has been cut. scratched, 
sawn and notched in a most unmerciful manner, and 
although scarcely able to keep body and soul to- 
gether there be those who would take the poor 
thing's character away and say that though it doubt- 
less came from the grammar school where Shake- 
speare got his little Latin and less Greek, there is no 
proof that it was his shining morning face that looked 
over that desk. In one of the rooms, written in pen- 
cil, is a poetical tribute to Shakespeare, by one of 
the Bonapartes. 

The Hunt portrait is exhibited in this building, 
and so arranged that when shut up it is in a fire- 
proof safe. 

This house became the property of the nation, 
through public subscription raised chiefly by Mr. J. 
O. Halliwell. I have heard it related that some 
Americans were about to purchase the building and 
that Englishmen had to bestir themselves to prevent 
its removal to our side of the water ; but it would 
have been a doubtful glory for America, and no 
doubtful shame for England, to permit either its re- 
moval or destruction. Quite a pretty garden sur- 
rounds the place, and the very same flowers whose 
names and images decorate his lines, bloom in the 
soil his youthful feet have pressed. The house is 
isolated from other dwellings to avoid danger of fire. 



6o THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

The house is accepted as the birthplace of Shake- 
speare from tradition rather than evidence. Of 
New Place, Anne Hathavvay's cottage, and his burial- 
place, the documentary history is good and suffi- 
cient. 

John Shakespeare married Mary Arden — not of 
the forest of Arden, but of the village of Wilmcote. 
She was the daughter of a gentleman. John Shake- 
speare seems to have been a dealer in wool ; he was 
a man of some influence and ambition, for he held 
the office of justice of the peace and high bailiff. 
William Shakespeare was the eldest child, born on 
the 23d of April, 1564. John Shakespeare had sev- 
eral other children, and it is said that the increase 
of his family occasioned the early removal of William 
from school. 

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway; 
he was nineteen and she twenty-seven. What he did 
for subsistence immediately after his marriage is not 
definitely ascertained. He soon after went to Lon- 
don, and in a few years made the acquaintance of 
the men who, with him, have made the age of Eliza- 
beth glorious — Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, 
Donne, Selden, Myddleton. The Mermaid Tavern, 
in Friday Street ; the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, 
held many a jovial crew of revellers ; but they were 
thinkers as well as wits and jolly good fellows, and 
though some of them saddened and shortened their 
lives by too much drinking and feasting, the author 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 6 1 

of Hamlet and creator of Falstaff, could not have 
wasted many hours in mere wine bibbing. The 
tavern-haunting proclivities of illustrious English- 
men in the good old days must not be mistaken for 
the mere desires of thirst and time-killing. The par- 
lors of the taverns were the trysting-places, mayhap, 
of men who discussed philosophy or broke friendly 
lances in combats of wit. Didn't the worthy Dr. 
Johnson go to the Mitre Tavern, and, by the bye, 
take so much wine that poor Boswell got the head- 
ache in trying to keep up with him. Such fellows 
as these were glorious revellers — not the revellers 
who see double before they find any wit at all, and 
then so attenuated that it is invisible to sober men. 
Even to this day, in England, men of considerable 
refinement and culture may be found in the evenings 
in cosy back parlors of taverns. I have met in a 
back parlor of a quiet tavern men who, whilst replen- 
ishing their glasses with " another three-pen'orth, my 
dear," discussed literature, art and politics with 
refinement and acumen, — men of position and 
knowledge ; so that it is not just to judge of the 
roysterers of merry England by the habits and quali- 
ties of a bar-room lounger in New York. 

Leaving the old house and sauntering up the quiet 
streets and observing the inhabitants, the more the 
wonder grew that such a man should rise from such 
a place ; not that the sweet singer of the meadows 
and the daisy and lily, and the reader of the books 



62 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

in brooks should have been born in Warwickshire, 
but that the grand philosophic genius and the master 
painter of human nature should lift himself from 
the quiet unexciting life of a rural village. Had he 
been reared where nature is sublime, or where men 
and passions are multitudinous, our ideas of the 
" eternal fitness of things," would be better satisfied. 
But, nevertheless, so it is, that the man whose thoughts 
are wisdom for time, whose words flow in majesty, 
shine in beauty, or twinkle in brightness — whose 
depth is beyond the wise, and whose simplicity holds 
the multitude — this man's early life was passed in a 
cleanly little market town, and his early associations 
were among men whose life was hum-drum ; people 
well content with living and being, satisfied to keep 
their incomes apace with their necessities, walking 
below philosophy and Hamlet, and above passion and 
excitement. 

The half dreaming, half puzzled sensations of a 
man who finds himself actually at some long ven- 
erated shrine, or in some awful presence, are some- 
what difficult of expression, more especially for 
one who has not learned to make sight-seeing a 
business, or whose enthusiasm has not suffered the 
chill of incredulity or the surfeit of quantity. 

The little town numbers but thirty-five hundred 
inhabitants. The river Avon takes its rise at Naseby, 
and empties into the Severn at Tewkesbury. The 
principal bridge is Clopton's. There are a few little 
towns in the neighborhood, Bidford, &c, as men- 
tioned by Shakespeare. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 63 

In 1597 Shakespeare purchased and remodeled 
a dwelling called the " greate house." He named it 
" New Place." It was the last house which he 
inhabited. The zealous pilgrim to Stratford-on-Avon 
will not see the building ; it was destroyed through 
the testy selfishness of a man who professed god- 
liness. The Rev. Francis Gastrell became the last 
owner of the house. Shakespeare willed it to his 
daughter, Mrs. Hall. From her it went to his grand- 
daughter, and, passing through other hands, was 
purchased by Gastrell. 

It is traditionally known of Shakespeare that he 
planted a " Mulberry Tree." Sir Hugh Clopton, 
who owned the house before Gastrell, took pride 
in exhibiting it to visitors. Gastrell was bothered 
by men who, in veneration for the divinely-gifted 
poet, and with the human curiosity which applies 
itself to the observation of relics, memorials, etc., 
plied the owner of the house and tree with ques- 
tions, to such an extent that the beatitude of the 
meek might have been earned by his reverence, 
but he fell behind the wise man who is greater 
than he that taketh a city — his wrath boiled over 
and he cut down the mulberry tree. The history 
of the cutting down of this tree is not so widely 
known as the story of the hatchet in the hands of 
the immortal George Washington, yet there is no 
visitor to Stratford, or student of the biography of 
Shakespeare, who is not tempted to anathematize 
this unworthy. 



64 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

The churchman was not entirely relieved by 
this piece of wickedness, for, though he axed the 
tree, still people axed him questions ; and when 
he left the place for a temporary residence else- 
where, the city of Stratford taxed the property, 
because he left it in possession of the servants, 
practically maintaining a household. He paid the 
tax, but in splenetic vengeance pulled down the 
house, declaring it should never be assessed again. 

Gastrell is his name ; ugly it is, and unpleasant its 
memory. We read, by the way, that English church- 
men, have in old days exercised functions and per- 
formed acts, which certainly to Americans appear 
strangely related to clerical professions and duties ; 
but public opinion, in its nineteenth century 
strength, has suppressed the more daring incon- 
sistencies and incongruities occasionally permitted 
in the clerical official of former days. Ameri- 
cans in general are not aware that the church 
in England is semi-political, that in many places 
clergymen are justices of the peace, and in some rural 
districts are looked upon with as much awe as rev- 
erence. The primogeniture laws of England pre- 
serve large estates, but unfortunately leave many 
persons who to dig they cannot, to beg they are 
ashamed, so, under the influence of the fortunate 
they are provided with positions in the army, the 
navy and the church ; and it happens that in many 
instances, holy offices have been accepted by men 
of tastes and feelings not at all in harmony with the 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 65 

profession. I was amused the other evening when 
at Oxford in company with some of the college men 
they sat up smoking and playing cards till one o'clock, 
Sunday morning. One of them, who was preparing for 
the church, said he thought he would go to prayers 
in the morning, as he wanted to give thanks for the 
arrival of his new breeches ; — and now that I have 
perpetrated one irreverence in repetition, I will 
mention a propos of the English law of descent, a 
Yankee reply that amused me considerably the first 
time I heard it. A cockney whose pronunciation, 
though not nasal, might be called mouthy, said " aw 
'ave you the laws of primogenituah in youah country, 
and the right of /^entail ? " Says the Yankee — " don't 
b'lieve we know what that is, but we've got plenty of 
cocktail and a very good thing it is too." I have got 
a long way off my subject, and the remotest excuse 
for alluding to cocktail, is the fact that Shakespeare 
himself, on one memorable occasion, got something 
under his waist-band which was more than his legs 
could carry. 

In dismissing the subject of the crabbed clergyman 
it is not necessary to speak in praise of the good- 
fellows of the cloth whose practice of their professions 
has honored their church and themselves. 

It was after Shakespeare had amassed some wealth 
by his works in London that he came to Stratford- 
on-Avon and bought the " Greate House." It is said 
that the Earl of Southampton at one time gave him 
;£iooo to assist him in a purchase he was a mind to — 
5 



66 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

perhaps it was at this time, though the amount is 
probably exaggerated, as at that period ,£1000 was an 
enormous sum for a present to a writer of plays. 

Unfortunately no graphic record of New Place 
exists as in Shakespeare's life. Old views of the place 
represent the building as it was about a century 
later. Mr. Halliwell has written a big book about 
New Place, and no doubt one could construct from 
the data a picture possibly as near the reality as 
some of the pre-historic monsters, which scientific men 
have built, with a bone or two for foundation and 
theory for superstructure.* 

New Place is, or was, on the High street, at the 
corner opposite the chapel of the guild \ — next door 
to the site of the old mansion, is a dwelling-house, 
occupied as a museum. It contains many articles of 
interest to the Shakespearian pilgrim, many little 
things formerly belonging to New Place. The small 

* A closer investigation into the history of New Place reveals 
the fact, that the house which Gastrell pulled down had been 
previously rebuilt, and that the foundations alone were Shake- 
sperian. The general belief is, that Gastrell destroyed the an- 
cient dwelling ; and perhaps he is visited with an amount of 
censure unmerited, in some respects ; and perhaps some Bene- 
dict readers, not so bold as Petruchio, may have their hearts 
softened towards him, when they learn of fair evidence 
that the act was instigated by Mrs. Gastrell ; and still there 
may be others who, like Beadle Bumble's accusers, will say 
that the law supposes a man's wife to act under his directions, 
— and they will laugh rather than accept Bumble's disrespectful 
reply, that " If the law supposes that, the law is a ass, a idiot." 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 6j 

sum of three pence is paid by each visitor, a charge 
which goes to keep the house in order. 

A tall and very stout gentleman, elderly, bland and 
kind, took an interest in exhibiting the things in 
charge, and after we had looked over the curiosities 
he took us out to see the gardens. Gastrell had the 
buildings pulled down, but he did not pull anything 
up, so the foundation walls remain — and the well. 
Every particle of soil has been throughly searched 
and sifted ; the well has been explored, and of the 
smallest article found a note has been taken. I was 
seized with a mild sort of kleptomania, and had made 
up my mind to pocket a small piece of stone or 
plaster from the wall, but! talk of Argus, the man 
with one hundred eyes ! — this man was all eyes, and 
yet he was childlike and bland. When I was innocent 
of any intention he appeared to have his eyes and 
mind far away, but when I concluded there would 
be no impropriety in stooping down to pick up a 
pebble, an easy, unconscious lookingeye was glancing 
over my way. That man would be worth a fortune in 
a counting house — he would see everything and 
catch everybody, and never appear to be looking. I 
concluded that his powers of perception were super- 
natural, and considered that it would be too wicked 
and irreverent to remove even a bit of crumbling wall. 
In taking a walk with the aforesaid old gentleman, he 
waxed eloquent, though I should have as little ex- 
pected sentiment from him as from a well-condition- 
ed alderman j evidently he felt a personal pride in 



68 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

his duty and an honor in serving the memory of 
Shakespeare. He said that the domain under his 
charge was the best of all ; for, did he not tread the 
same earth and did he not occupy the same space 
wherein Shakespeare moved and had his being, — 
did not his footsteps lay in the same garden where 
the immortal bard walked and mused ? 

The old gentleman took us to look at a very 
ancient Mulberry Tree. It is in the rear garden. 
Its genealogy is said to be known ; though there be 
some who say that it had no immediate relation 
to the old one, others believe that it is a scion of 
the tree planted by Shakespeare. 

The grounds attached to New Place are quite 
extensive, and in proportion to the dignity of the old 
house. The garden is ornamented by the piece of 
sculpture by Banks, formerly in Pall Mall. It is en- 
graved inBoydell's series. It represents Shakespeare 
reclining between Poetry and Painting. 

A network of iron is placed on the ruined foun- 
dations of the house, and everything is preserved 
with such care that doubtless Gastrell, if permitted 
to express an opinion, would say nineteenth century 
folk had gone mad. 

The church of Holy Trinity meets the eye, a 
charming object, in proportion elegant, in the archi- 
tecture of its parts, so varied as to tell of long life 
and a struggle through centuries, the relentless tooth 
of time has been suffered to decorate and soften, 
.not to annihilate. The spire that surmounts the 




mm 




THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 69 

pile is lofty and well proportioned, an avenue of 
trees with branches arched leads to the western 
entrance. This green branch-covered pathway, the 
tall elms which rise at the boundary, and the Avon 
at the rear margin, are no feeble adjuncts to the 
builded beauty of the church. 

Entering the holy edifice I removed my hat and 
bowed my head with a reverence as well for the 
greatest created as the Creator — but I could scarcely 
realize that my feet were making echoes in the 
temple that held the dust of Shakespeare, that here 
in religious response was raised the mortal voice 
which, now immortal, is confined only by the girdle 
of the earth. 

The first objects apparent within the dim religious 
light were tombs and monuments, some interesting 
for the names as associated with Shakespeare's 
biography, and some by no means insignificant as 
works of sculpture. How much more worthy of 
praise the ancient mode of perpetuating the memory 
of the dead by sculptured form, than the fashion to 
lavish modern wealth on stones and carving, hetero- 
geneous and meaningless ! 

The anciev t font from which Shakespeare is be- 
lieved to \ *e been baptized, stands in the south 
jl me transept ; the pedestal is gone and the 
bowl is damaged. Passing through into the chancel 
a few steps brought me to the resting-place of the 
mortal part of him whom the world delighteth to call 
immortal. The flooring is raised a step in front of 



yo THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

the chancel railing, and one of the stones forming 
the pavement, is at the same time the tablet where- 
on are graven the words familiar even to the igno- 
rant. 

GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE, 
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE : 

BLEST BE Y MAN Y SPARES TIIES STONES, 

AND CVRST BE HE Y MOVES MY BONES. 

On one side of this slab is the stone commemo- 
rating his wife, who died some years after him ; on 
the other side are slabs covering the remains of other 
relatives, including his son-in-law, Dr. Hall, and his 
two daughters and grand-daughter. 

The monument to Shakespeare is placed in the 
wall, several feet above the stone. The bust of 
Shakespeare is under an arch which is supported by 
columns of marble, decorated above by figures of 
cherubs. The bust, life-size, represents the poet 
in the attitude of inspiration, a cushion before him, 
and a pen in his hand. The bust was originally 
colored to resemble life, comformably with the taste 
of the times — eyes, light hazel, hair and beard auburn 
— scarlet doublet, under a loose black gown, without 
sleeves. The cushion was crimson on the top and 
green underneath. Meddlesome Malone painted it 
white ; at present it is restored to the original colors. 

The inscription upon the stone is probably the 
work of a friend of Shakespeare's, or written by some 
one who had known the poet's wishes. There are 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



7 1 



passages in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, which, 
doubtless, express the poet's own feelings in regard 
to the removal of the dead. Were it not for the 
epitaph, doggerel as it may be, Shakespeare's dust 
would have been removed .to Westminster Abbey. 
The desire to rest near his home is not only a mark 
of his affection for his birth-place, but the fulfilment 
of it must be a source of gratification to posterity. 
But a few days ago I was in the vaults of the Pan- 
theon — the temple built for the honor of great French- 
men. All was cold, gloomy, sealed up from light 
and warmth. From out of a stone coffin came the 
ruddy hand of Rousseau, inspiring a vulgar terror as 
it was unexpectedly lit up by the flambeau of the 
guide. Were Shakespeare's bones in Westminster, 
Garrick could not have sung : 

Flow on, silver Avon ! in song ever flow, 
Be the swans on thy bosom still whiter than snow, 
Ever full be thy stream, like his fame may it spread, 
And the turf ever hallow'd which pillow'd his head. 

Nor could I have enjoyed my visit half so much. 
" Poet's Corner " is rich enough to spare him, and 
his tomb is a Mecca in itself. 

Upon the monument are two inscriptions, one in 
English, the other Latin. They attest the fact that 
Shakespeare was held in high contemporary estima- 
tion. 

Not far from Shakespeare lies John Combe. It is 
said of this man that he asked Shakespeare to write 
his epitaph — the following was the result : 



7 2 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

" Ten in the hundred lies here ingraved, 

" ' Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not sav'd ; 

" If any man ask, who lies in this tomb ? 

" Oh ! oh ! quoth the devil,' tis my John-a-combe." 

It is not accepted as Shakespeare's, because he was 
the gentle Shakespeare, and known to bear friendly 
relations with Combe, but it does not seem altogether 
improbable that Shakespeare should have said a 
sharp thing in a joke, for the whole affair was of the 
nature of a supposition. Possibly the old gentleman 
was fishing for compliments, and perhaps he had 
been a little overreaching in money transactions with 
some of the Shakespeare family. 

Much interest has been manifested by antiquaries as 
to which is the most authentic portrait of Shake- 
speare. The bust was erected a short time after the 
poet's death ; and there is a resemblance in the en- 
graved portrait annexed to the first folio edition — 
and Ben Jonson has written beneath this portrait 
that 

This figure, that thou here seest put, 

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut ; 

Wherein the graver had a strife 

With nature, to out-doo the life. 

O ! could he but have drawne his wit 

As well in brass as he hath hit 

His Face, the Print would then surpasse 

All that was ever writ in brass. 

But since he cannot, reader, looke 

Not on his picture, but his booke. 

B.J. 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. j$ 

It is the same Ben Jonson who said, " I love the 
man and do honour his memory on this side idolatry 
as much as any. ! ' 

Yet there be writers who have tortured them- 
selves, if not many readers, to prove that Shakespeare 
wasn't Shakespeare — he was perhaps Bacon or some- 
body else. 

The church is not all of one period ; its history 
can be traced to William the Conqueror's time, if not 
earlier. The town itself commences its history in 
the 6th or 7th century. Of the building, as it now 
stands, the tower and nave are the oldest — the tran- 
sept was erected in the 15th century by Hugh Clop- 
ton, and the most beautiful part of it, the chancel, 
was erected by Dr. Balshall, in the 15th century. In 
1700 the roof was altered and the old glass remain- 
ing was collected and put in the centre of the east 
window. The steeple is modern. Previous to 1764 
the steeple was of wood, but in that year the people 
of Stratford built the present one of Warwickshire 
stone. Total height, 163 feet ; total length of 
church, 176 feet. 

The charnel house — a look into which is assigned 
as the origin of Shakespeare's dislike to a removal, as 
exhibited in his epitaph — was not used after the Re- 
formation, and in 1800 it was pulled down. Dr. 
Balshall built his chancel in the place of an older one. 
Around the church is a graveyard, well tenanted 
— bounded on the East by the Avon — that it is the 
gentle Avon and flows softly is as true as true poetical 



74 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

description. In the land of the Mississippi and the 
Hudson it would scarce be called a river. A stone's 
throw will traverse it. 

The gentle Shakespeare, happy in that which was 
in unison with his nature, must have loved this 
stream. To me it was inexpressibly charming in 
contemplation. I enjoyed dividing not associa- 
tion from character. The river, with the image of 
heaven on its bosom, flowed by so gently that it 
seemed thoughtful of the sleepers by its side — the 
murmur of insects, the occasional note of a bird and 
the rustling of the leaves were sounds of life and 
motion, but not inharmonious. 

" Thou soft-flowing Avon — by thy silver stream, 

Of things more than mortal, sweet Shakespeare would dream ; 

The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 

For hallowed the turf is which pillow'd his head." 

How delightful is the walk from Holy Trinity to 
Shottery ! It is a refreshing change from the solemn 
temple where sentiments have gathered upon the 
mind reflecting and subdued, to the sweet and ten- 
der green of the fields, England's hedgerows, the 
twitter of the birds and gaiety of sunshine. I confess 
that I danced over the ground light-headed as light- 
heeled, and took a bound over the first fence that 
came in the way. How pretty the church looked, its 
rising spire shepherding the dwellings ! That after- 
noon the air was delightful, quickening, exhilarating. 

Footsteps ! pick yourselves up ! For hath not 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



75 



Shakespeare, when near thine own age, skipped 
along the same path, made sweet ballads to a dam- 
osel's eyebrow : — she dwelt over the fields — the scent 
of the new-mown hay is sweet ; daisies pied and 
violets blue do paint the meadows with delight. 
Shine,brighteyes, beat youthful pulse; — see everything 
joyous, the earth happy, and the heavens propitious, 
for two stars there be will glow more brightly at thy 
coming : — just beyond the turning of a green lane, 
on a bank side, with a flowery garden in front neath 
shady trees, is a thatched house wherein sweet Anne 
dwells. Let the soft moon tell of the meeting and 
the breeze that kisses the roses recount the sweet 
sorrows of parting. My inky pen does not flow 
with the figures to write of the love of the author of 
Romeo and Juliet. 

Anne Hathaway was the daughter of a yeoman — 
well-to-do. When Shakespeare married her she was 
eight years his senior. That Shakespeare should have 
won a woman so much older than himself is by no 
means remarkable, so far as regards the overthrow of 
the usual prejudice which women have for o'er-youthful 
suitors. What woman could resist the wooing of the 
man, comely in person, sweet in demeanor, who could 
talk love like Romeo, and knew the human heart 
like Shakespeare ? Doubtless the young woman 
was of exceeding beauty and attractiveness, and pos- 
sessed qualities which in the young poet's eyes were 
more attractive than youth. 

From the fact of Shakespeare's return to his home, 



7 6 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

the purchase of a "greate house" and the remodel- 
ling it for the comfort of his family, it is not too, 
much to infer that his married life was happy. 

I made a sketch of the house, but unfortunately 
time moved so fast that a rough outline was all that 
I could pencil. It needs no flight of the imagina- 
tion or rose-tinted crayon to make the Shottery cot- 
tage a charming subject for the artist, — its length 
broken up with windows and open timbers, pictur- 
esque shadows in the doorways and under the eaves, 
all capped by the thatched roof, that cottage cover- 
ing which has always poetry in its name. Shading 
the whole are some beautiful trees, which kindly 
weave their branches over the straight line of the 
roof. The foreground is a flowery garden, bound 
by a leafy fence. 

The old lady in charge, was in keeping as well, her 
wrinkles in sympathy with the time-furrowed boards 
— her child-like manners and unaffected bearing quite 
in unison with the rustic simplicity of the dwelling. 
What a false note would have been struck in the 
charming chord of romance, rusticity and hero-worship 
had there been placed in charge a quick pert young 
man like an American ticket-agent, or one of those 
snuffling, fish-blooded individuals whose vocation as 
showmen seems to be to make one feel sorrowful. 
They may be fat, — it is from the want of emotion — not 
from the abundance of laughter. I remember one 
fellow who showed me about St. Paul's Cathedral. 
Mark Tapley would have felt it a credit to be jolly in 




& 



&iiyHI 



■J.VSaWixx-^^'vT.-a^i Vo- 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 



77 



his presence. Such fellows should be paid more to 
at least simulate some interest in that which they 
talk about. Perhaps it would have the same effect of 
which Steele's undertaker complained — he scolded 
one of his mutes for not putting on the proper amount 
of sorrow, although he had increased his wages. 
" Why, you rascal ! " says he, " the more I pay you 
the gladder you look." 

The cottage was really a triple house. The 
relics which are exhibited, of the Shakespearian 
period, are not numerous, and as to their authen- 
ticity, doubts are strong. The large high post bed- 
stead is certainly very ancient ; a settle is at the 
door ; it is old and weather-beaten enough to pass 
for the original courting stool with those who are 
not specially inquisitive as to its history. 

The interior of the house is interesting, and the 
kitchen suggestive of some of the old Dutch masters. 

The visitors' register was dotted with the names 
of Americans. 

On the road from Shottery to Stratford I was 
curtseyed to in the genuine old fashion, by the chil- 
dren on the way, a mode of salutation which the old 
lady in charge of the place, appeared to use habit- 
ually to visitors. 

I came upon a shop wherein I observed many 
curiosities, old pieces of furniture, great tall clocks, 
constructed in the days when a clock was an intri- 
cate mechanical contrivance, and when time was not 
reduced to so small a quantity of money as $1.00 for 

LtfC. 



7 8 THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

a New England ticker. The owner was a Mr. Mar- 
shall. I wonder if related to the engraver of Shake- 
speare's portrait as affixed to his poems ? He had 
several odds and ends, among them a goblet carved 
of mulberry wood, and another, a little oaken box. 
The goblet was rather elaborately cut, and certainly 
from a tree of great age. He declared with all hon- 
orable dignity that the wood was from the present 
aged tree, from which a limb was cut to lessen its 
weight. And the wooden box was made from the 
oak coming from the house in Henley street, in its 
repair and reconstruction. He did not make so 
great an oath as did one Sharp, of the former tree, 
but produced certificates, receipts for the wood, &c. 
I sighed for the proneness to unbelief which exists in 
the minds of men, who,. shrewd fellows, do not often 
part with their money in exchange for relics — so 
I bought the goblet for about its value as a piece 
of carving — and so far as a relic goes shall feel 
satisfied in the future with the fact of its reminding 
me of Stratford-on-Avon. As for the oaken box I 
shall give that to an eccentric friend of mine who 
lives in New York ; he is a nice old fellow who rever- 
ences the immortal bard, and treasures up old for- 
gotten lore, and loves a book which he thinks Shake- 
speare may have read. It is said of him that he 
keeps many rare and choice volumes in barrels ; it is 
by no means a difficult flight of the imagination to see 
him groping about among them, holding a candle and 
looking for all the world like a Guy Fawkes with the 
powder-barrels. The story is a somewhat strange 



THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. yg 

one, and I have been inclined to doubt that he 
really had any rarities hidden away in this manner 
— but I have put the question to him straight and 
he has never denied it outright, and a request for 
a book which I knew he possessed, has been so 
frequently met with the statement that he could not 
get at it, that the suspicion of his eccentricity is 
confirmed. I mean to give him this box, and perhaps, 
as he loves everything relating to the immortal bard, 
he will tell me what he has hidden away. 

I took dinner at a tavern, the name of which I 
forget, but it was interesting and notable for the 
fact that the rooms instead of being numbered, were 
named after the plays of Shakespeare, — Macbeth, 
Hamlet, &c. It would have been pleasant to have 
slept a night in one of these rooms. Possibly a night- 
cap of sack and sugar, and a sea-coal fire might set 
the chairs, tables and bed-posts into transformations. 
Such freaks have been most delightfully recounted 
by one Washington Irving ; and such bright, jolly, 
and captivating ghosts as came to his bed-side, or 
in his drowsy arm chairs, seldom visit ordinary mor- 
tals. I regret that I did not inquire if they supplied 
FalstafFs room with sack and sugar, and was even 
neglectful enough to ask if they kept the article in 
the house. 

It was shortly after Shakespeare's marriage that 
he got into the deer-stealing scrape. Biographers 
and commentators distress themselves unnecessarily 
to prove that Shakespeare did not steal deer. I 
think it almost certain that he did, and from the 



So THE HOME OF SHAKESPEARE. 

American stand-point, it seems not a particularly 
discreditable transaction — for a youth of spirit to 
drive a shaft through the side of a running deer — 
nor is it worth while attempting to prove him a man 
altogether perfect. He got drunk once, and waking 
up gave a short descriptive sketch of the neighbor- 
ing towns : 

Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hilbro', hungry Grafton, 
Dudging Exhall, papist Wixford, 
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford. 

Perhaps if I had taken enough of sack and sugar 
to have made as effective a sketch of Stratford, I 
should have done better than to write this long letter. 

Is it a cause for regret that the life of Shake- 
speare is clouded in obscurity ? We have the truths 
of his existence, birth, marriage and death, so un- 
disputed, that he is not a myth ; then the mystery 
and doubt is but a stimulus to the curious ; the man 
is greater for the mist, as the genii for the vapor 
and cloud. A Pepys-like diary by Shakespeare 
would but make him more of the earth, earthy. 
We have now but to read his works, and hear that 
he was the gentle Shakespeare ; and we would not 
too eagerly barter imagination for knowledge — how 
seldom is the drawing of one so beautiful as the 
painting of the other ! 

Terra tegit, populus mceret, Olympus habet. 
Yours, etc., 

Joseph F. Sabin. 



The following two letters are prefixed to the first 
editions of " Venus and Adonis," and " The rape 
of Lucrece," and comprise the complete prose 
works of William Shakespeare. 



TO THE 
RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, 

KARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD 

Right Honourable, 

J know not how I shall offend in dedicating my 
unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the 
world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop 
to support so weak a burden : only, if your honour 
seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised 
and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I 
have honoured you with some graver labor. But if 
the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall 
be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after 
ear s©fc**pe- so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so 
barren a harvest. I leave it to your honourable sur- 
vey, and your honour to your heart's content ; which I 
wish may always answer your own wish and the 
world's hopeful expectation. 

Your honour's in all duty, 

William Shakespeare. 



TO THE 
RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, 

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD. 

The love I dedicate to your lordship is without 
end ; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, 
is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of 
your honourable disposition, not the worth of my un- 
tutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What 
I have done is yours ; what I have to do is yours ; 
being part in all l have, devoted yours. Were my 
worth greater, my duty would show greater. Mean- 
time, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom 
I wish long life still lengthened with all happiness. 
Your lordship's in all duty, 

William Shakespeare. 



LAKE CHAMPLAIN 
RCUSES POINT, 






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